Kevin Ollie's Coaching Staff Gets Restructured

As expected, UConn has restructured its coaching staff under new head coach Kevin Ollie. Glen Miller takes over as associate head coach, replacing George Blaney, who moves to full-time assistant. Karl Hobbs also gets bumped up to full-time assistant after spending last season as director of basketball administration. Kevin Freeman now takes over that role, after serving as assistant director of basketball administration last season.

UConn is expected to fill Freeman's former role, though nothing's official yet. Ricky Moore has stated recently that he will likely be hired for that role.

Here's the press release sent out by UConn:

The
University of Connecticut men’s basketball coaching staff has been restructured
under new head coach Kevin Ollie.

Glen
Miller, starting the third season of his second stint on the UConn staff, will
assume the duties of Associate Head Coach, while Karl Hobbs, last year’s
Director of Basketball Administration, will join veteran George Blaney as
fulltime assistant coaches. Kevin Freeman, who was added to the UConn staff
last year as Assistant Director of Administration, will take over as Director
of Basketball Administration.

“As
I said when I accepted the job as head coach at Connecticut, I think I have the
greatest coaching staff in the country,” Ollie said. “I feel extremely
fortunate to have a staff with so much head coaching experience behind me. I
know that we are going to work as hard as we can to continue the legacy of
tremendous success that UConn enjoyed under Coach (Jim) Calhoun.”

The
UConn coaching staff has a combined 57 years of collegiate head coaching
experience with a combined total of 860 victories.

Miller
returned to Calhoun’s UConn staff in 2010-11 as Director of Basketball
Administration following 17 years of head coaching experience at Connecticut
College, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania. Last year, he
moved into the role of fulltime assistant coach and was an integral part of
practice work, game strategy, and recruiting.

A
native of Groton, Conn., Miller played for two seasons at UConn, then played
two seasons for Calhoun at Northeastern. He joined Calhoun’s first staff at
UConn in 1986 and worked with the Huskies for seven seasons before being named
head coach at Connecticut College in 1993. In six seasons, Miller led Conn
College to unprecedented success, including a 28-1 record and a berth in the
Division III Final Four in 1998-99.

Miller
moved on to Division I, taking over at Brown in 1999-2000, and setting school
records for wins in a two-, three-, four-, and five-year span, as well as most
Ivy League wins in a season. He recruited and developed 10 all-conference
players and the League’s 2004 Player of the Year. Following seven years in
Providence, Miller was hired as head coach of the prestigious program at Penn
in 2006. He led the Quakers to the Ivy League Championship and an NCAA
Tournament berth in 2006-07, setting the school record for most Ivy League wins
by a first-year coach. He spent three full years and part of a fourth as the
Penn head coach. In 17 seasons as a head coach, Miller compiled 233 victories.

Born
8/20/1961, Miller and his wife Yvonne are the parents of four children: Tony,
Genelle, Jillian (a UConn junior), and Emma.

Hobbs,
who spent eight years as a UConn assistant from 1993-2001 and helped the
Huskies win eight BIG EAST championships and the 1999 NCAA title, returned to
Storrs last season and will again become a fulltime assistant on Ollie’s staff.

Hobbs
had spent the previous 10 years as the head coach at George Washington
University, leading the Colonials to two Atlantic 10 Tournament championships,
a regular-season title, and five straight postseason appearances, including
three consecutive NCAA Tournament berths. He was the Atlantic 10 Coach of the
Year in 2005-06, and notched 166 wins while at GWU.

Out
of Roxbury, Mass., Hobbs was a four-year starting point guard for UConn
(1980-84), where he served as team captain and was an All-BIG EAST selection as
a senior. He led the team in assists all four years and still ranks fifth on
the all-time list.

Hobbs
began his coaching career as a six-year assistant at Boston University before
joining Calhoun’s UConn staff. While Hobbs was at UConn, he was instrumental in
the recruitment of such Husky stars as Richard Hamilton, Caron Butler, and
Emeka Okafor. The Huskies had a record of 216-56 while Hobbs was on the staff.

Born
8/7/1961, Hobbs and wife JoAnn are the parents of two daughters, RaShauna and
Kaliah.

Blaney
has spent the last 11 years as a member of Calhoun’s coaching staff, serving as
associate head coach for the past five seasons and taking charge of the team on
those occasions when Calhoun was incapacitated.

Since
Blaney joined UConn, the Huskies have a 278-102 record, captured six BIG EAST
championships, made 10 NCAA appearances, three trips to the Final Four, and won
two national championships.

Blaney,
a 2003 inductee into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame, brought more than
30 years of coaching experience with him when he came to UConn, including two
seasons at Stonehill, three years at Dartmouth, and 22 years at Holy Cross, his
alma mater, where he won 357 games, posted seven 20-win seasons, and made eight
postseason appearances. He also was head coach for three years at Seton Hall in
the BIG EAST before leaving to become the Vice President of Basketball
Operations for the International Basketball League. Blaney returned to college
coaching in 2000-01 as an assistant coach at the University of Rhode Island
before joining Calhoun at UConn the following year. In 30 years as a collegiate
head coach, Blaney compiled an impressive 461-383 overall record.

A
native of Jersey City, N.J., Blaney was an All-New England player at Holy Cross,
where he scored 1,012 points. After he graduated in 1961, he was drafted in the
fourth round of the NBA Draft by the N.Y. Knicks and played the 1961-62 season
with the team.

Born
11/12/1939, Blaney and his wife Maryellen have two daughters and three sons,
and five grandchildren.

Freeman,
a former UConn captain and the program’s all-time leader in games played (140),
came back to Storrs last year after playing 11 seasons of professional
basketball in Italy, Australia, Greece, South Korea, China, Puerto Rico, Spain
and Venezuela. He served as assistant director of administration under Hobbs
last year and will assume the director’s position this year.

Freeman,
a native of Springfield, Mass., was an all-state performer at Paterson (N.J.)
Catholic before his stellar career at UConn. He was named the Most Outstanding
Player of the 1999 BIG EAST Championship and selected to the 1999 NCAA West
Regional All-Tournament Team as an invaluable starter on UConn’s first National
Championship team. During Freeman’s career, the Huskies compiled a 109-32
record, made three NCAA appearances, reaching the Elite Eight in 1998 and
winning the crown in 1999.

He
is No. 17 on UConn’s all-time scoring list with 1,476 points, No. 8 on the
all-time rebounding list with 913, and earned his degree in 2006.

Born
3/3/1978, Freeman and his wife Nicole are the parents of a daughter, Kekoa, and
a son, Sire.

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About Me

Started as UConn men's basketball beat writer for the New Haven Register in August, 2007. Before that, was traveling Boston Red Sox beat writer from 2004-06 for the Journal Register Co. (which included the Register).